Download The different meanings of `being` according to Aristotle and

ACTAPHILOSOPHICA, vol. 10 (2001), fase. 1- PAGG. 29-44
The different meanings of 'being' according to Aristotle and
Aquinas
Son1111ario: /. The A ristote/ian c/assificatin11 of 'being·. 2. Truth as being and being as true. 3.
Being as true, intentional being and logical being. 4. t"'..-i:isrence as truth and as act of being. 5.
711e·ro/e of the 111011.'' senses r~f" being in 111etaphysics and theology.
Ill
Western metaphysics takes its starting point in the formulation of that root
question which asks after its own object: «What is being?» 1. For, in effect,
«there is a science which studies being qua being, and the properties inherent in
it in virtue of its own nature» 2 . And yet from the outset, metaphysics is aware of
the extraordinary difficulty involved in dealing with its proper object. Because
«[ ... ] it is impossible [ ... ] for being to be a genus of existing things>), since it is
characteristic of the genus that the differences should lie outside it and yet there
can be no differences that lie outside being. In this way metaphysics dodges ab
initio what will continue to act as a temptation: the conception of its central
theme as something supremely abstract and empty of content, and hence able to
be inserted into a formal-logical fra1nework 4 .
The best and most successful defence against such ever recurring risk comes
from the following Aristotelian claim: «The term 'being' is used in various senses»5. In this fundamental thesis we find in a radical and precise way a conviction that reality as such-being in itself-cannot be fully grasped by our thought,
lJnivcrsidad de Navarra, 31080-Parnplona, Espafia
1 A1/eraph. VII, I 028b 4 (!rans. The Loeb Classical Library).
2 A1et(Jp/i. IV, I, 1003a21-22.
3 Cfr. Metaph. III, 993b 22-27.
4 err. M. llEIDEGGER, Nietzsche ff, Neske, Prullingcn 1961, p. 2 ! I.
5 A4etaph. IV, 2, 1003a 33; Metaph. VII, 1028a 10.
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and hence, the quest for the knowledge of its internal structure divides into different paths of approach, to which the different types of linguistic expression
co1Tespond.
Metaphysics is tronscenclental science. As a transcendental branch of knowledge its object surpasses us, in such a way that its unity does not exclude an
internal tension towards plurality. But as a form of knowledge that seeks after
itself as a science, it has to articulate its expressions with precision in order to
stick to the principal differentiations of its own object.
The decisive discovery of the analogical character of being, thus, does not fit
into a se1nantic research so much as into an investigation of the ontological
which is truly unique. On this point alone, one must already be aware that the
classical Aristotelian treatment of the senses of being is very different from that
undertaken by current analytical philosophy regarding a similar question, oriented in this latter case to an almost exclusive look at logic and language. It should
come as no surprise then that the different investigations-the Aristotelian and
the analytical-should appear to be heterogeneous.
It also happens that this difference between the two approaches is even further emphasized by the manner in which Aquinas tackles it. For even if it is obvious that the Thomistic doctrine on the different meanings of being relies on
Aristotle as its chief source, it is no less true that St Thomas Aquinas develops
this issue from the perspective of Christian revelation, something that could not
have been explicit in Aristotle. And what I will aim to show in this paper is precisely that the decisive influence of Aristotle was no obstacle to Aquinas's shedding new light on the matter, especially in what refers to the distinction between
proper he;ng and being as true.
1. The Aristotelian classification of 'being'
Aristotle did not carry out only one classification of the different senses of the
word 'being'. But the clearest and most complete and metaphysically relevant
one was that which presents us with a list of four rubrics. We are not talking
about four senses-the actual count would be at least fifteen-but rather about
four classification headings, of four groups of senses. In fact, the resulting senses
from this classification cannot be added up since each one of the rubrics looks to
a different se1nantic or ontological field, and as a consequence we are dealing
with four different criteria of classification.
This aspect of the Aristotelian classification-which is even more conspicuous in Aquinas-has not been sufficiently emphasized by systematic metaphysics, leading sometimes to simplistic and impoverished portrayals. For we
are not dealing only with a richer enu1neration irl the genuine Aristotelian and
~fho111istic tradition, in comparison to conte1nporary approaches: its most distinctive feature lies in the fact that the classifications are open and differentiated
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among each other. The frugal framework presented by analytical philosophers in
their critique of metaphysics-with their typically triadic distinction between
prerlicotion, iclentity and existehce 6~responds to the use of only one of the criteria of classification, of a formal-se1nantic tiature; an exclusivistn that accounts
for the kernel of its metaphysical c1iticism. The many-hued aspect of classical
treatment shows that the "interest" of realistic metaphysics does not lie in submitting oneself to the demands of a pe1fectly formalized method, but rather in
sticking to reality just as it is and as we talk about it. The ontological perspective
takes primacy over the semantic in Aristotelianism, but this does not lead to
obscurity or confusion, because the con-esponding ambits are explicitly differentiated, establishing a foundational order between them.
The two most complete texts about the senses of being in Aristotle's
Metaphysics would appear to be Book V (Chapter 7) and the Book VI (Chapter
2).
In Book V we read the following:
·Being' n1eans, first, accidental being, second, absolute being t: . .. ] The senses of
essential hcing are those which are indicated by the figures of predication; for
being has as n1any senses as there are ways of predication [ ... ]Again 'to be' and
'is' 1ncan that a thing is true, and 'not to be' that it is false. Similarly in affirmation and negation [ ... }Again 'to be' lneans that so1nc of these statements can be
tnade in virtue of a potentiality and others in virtue of an actuality 7.
In Book VI he reiterates these distinctions in another way:
But since the sin1ple tcnn 'being' is used in various senses, of which we saw that
one was accidental, and another true (not-being being used in the sense of
'false'); and since besides these arc the categories, e.g. the 'what', quality, quantity. place, ti1ne and any other similar 1ncanings; and Further besides all these the
potential and actual[ . .. ] 8.
Franz Brentano considered this last classification as "the most complete", for
which the former serves as an explanation and clarification with examples 9. In
his Commentarv to the Metaphysics of Aristotle, Aquinas points out that the
order in the enumeration of the first text corresponds to a gradation of perfection
in each use of the meanings of being 10 . We should realize, however, that the
6
err.
R. CARNAP, Ueberwindung der Metaphysik durch logische Analyse der Sprache,
«Erkcnntnis>>, II (1932), pp. 219-241.
7 Metaph. V. 7, 1017"7, 22-24, 31-33; 1017"35- 1017b2.
8 Metaph. VI, 2, 1026" 33 - 1026b 2.
9
F. BRENTANO, Va11 der n1an11igfache11 Bedeurung des Seie11de11 nach Aristote!es, Hildeshein1,
Olms, 1960.
10
crr. /11 V /\!fetaphysiconun, lect. 9, nn. 885-897.
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ordering of four groups of the senses of being that appears in the second text
throws the succession of the diverse perspectives adopted in each one of the
rubrics more clearly into relief:
l. The distinction between coincillental being or ens per accidens and being
by itself or ens per se pertains to a logical-semantic perspective of "formal" character.
2. Beillg as true or ens ut vertun, in its difference from proper being or ens
propri11rn. can be ascribed to a se1nantic dimension of "material" nature.
3. The division of being that comes out of a consideration of the figures of
predicalion or categories moves on to the ontological level of "categorial"
nature.
4. Being as actuality and being as potentiality correspond, in this last case, to
an ontological consideration at the "transcendental" level.
We are dealing hence with a progressive approach from the mind to reality
itself: fro1n the ens secunlhfln rationenl (on kata logon) to the ens secunlhun nat~
uram (on kata phys in). It is necessary to insist, though, that the application of
these four criteria of classification does not fence off certain meanings of being
that should be completely independent the one from the other. According to the
order put forward, one goes from the least basic to the most fundamental, given
that the logical-semantic level is grounded in the ontological plane, and the categories are grounded in the transcendental principles. And just as the grounding is
present in the grounded, so then the latter senses are present in the earlier ones:
in (I) reside the senses (2), (3) and (4); in (2) the senses (3) and (4); in (3) only
(4 ), and none in this last one.
This presence of some senses of being in others has not been systematically
dealt with by the Greek commentators, nor by the medieval ones, and has been
almost completely ignored in Neoscholasticism and in contemporary scholarship. And yet it is of great theoretical interest, because-in the overlap-the
combination of these senses of being gives rise to further relevant distinctions.
For instance, the presence of the distinction between actuality and potentiality
(4) in the sphere of being as true leads to a distinction between real possibility
and veritalit'e 11ossibility, avoiding confusion between this sense and the mere
logical possibility of late Scholasticism.
Keeping this in mind, we proceed now to the basic grouping together of these
senses of being: while (1) and (2) refer to being in propositions, (3) and (4) signify being h1 reality. Aristotle himself provides a foothold for this kind of global
discrimination, when he points out that only these last two senses of being form
prni of being qua being as the object of metaphysics:
Since the co1nbinations and separation exists in thought and not.in things, and
this sense of being is different fron1 the proper senses (since thought attaches or
detaches essence or quality or some other category), we n1ay dismiss the accidental being and the being as true. For the cause of the one is indeterminate, and of
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Lhc other an affection of thoughl; and both are connected with the remaining
genus or 'being' and do not indicate any other nature of being. Let us therefore
dis111iss thein, and consider the causes and principles of heing itself qua being 11 .
Now entia per accidens do not form part of the object of metaphysics and are
not studied as such by any science, as they are so neither usually nor always and
of necessity, but only fortuitously. In fact accidental being is nothing more than
what happens 12 . It is a mere coincidence, a coincidental being. «There can be no
speculation about it. This is shown by the fact that no science, whether it be
practical, productive or speculative concerns itself with it»l3_
Moreover, the task of the first science is not that of looking for the origins of
heing as rme, but rather to the origins of exrerior and determinare being 14 , i. e.
of really existent substances. Unlike the case of coincidental being, one can
undertake a scientific study of the structures to being as true: something done by
logic, which looks into matters «regarding the truth» 15 . For as Aquinas says,
<data enin1 logica videtur esse de ente et non ente sic dicta» 16 .
2. Truth as being and being as true
But philosophy, according to Aristotle and Aquinas, is called "the knowledge
of truth". The object of theoretic knowledge is truth, whereas the object of praclical knowledge is action. And Aristotle continues in the second book of the
Metaphysics:
For even when they are investigating ho1v a thing is so, practical men study not
the eternal principle but the relative and irnn1ediate application. But we cannot
kno\V the trulh apart fro1n the cause. Now every thing through which a coinrnon
quality is co1n1nunicated to other things is itself of all those things in the highest
degree possessed of that quality (e.g. fire is hottest, because it is the cause of heat
in everything else); hence that also is 1nost true which causes all subsequent
things to he true. Therefore in every case the first principles of things 1nust necessarily be true above everything else-since they are not 1nercly so111etilnes true,
nor is anything the cause of their existence, but they are the cause of the existence of other things-, and so as each thing is in respect of existence, so it is in
respect of truth 17.
11 Metaph. Vl,4, I 027b 30 - 1028" 4.
12 Cfr. Meraph. XI, 8, I 064" 30 -1065" 6.
u tvletaph. VJ, 2, I 026b 3-5.
14 crr. lvletaph. XI, 8, 1065" 21-24.
15 Cfr. lvletaph. IV, 3, 1005° 3: BRENTANO, o.c., p. 30.
16
111 VJ /\lfetaphrsicon1111, lcct. 4, n. 1223.
17 /\!letaph. IT, I: 993b 20-30.
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As Aertsen indicates,
this argu1nenl 1nust have had a strong appeal to Thon1as, for he makes use of it in
his proofs for the existence of God and in the doctrine of creation. Metaphysics II
is also funda1nental for his view that there is an intrinsic connection between
being and truth!' ... ]. Truth now appears not as an intramental mode of being but
as having an ontological di1nension. T~e two approaches taken by Thomas result
in two basic conclusions about truth. The first approach based on Aristotle's
clain1 that truth is not in things but in the 1nind, results in the conclusion that
'being~as-true' falls outside the nietaphysics. The second approach follows
Aristotle's statement that there is the san1e disposition in being and in truth and
results in a conception of truth as being[ ... ]. The crucial question is, of course,
whether tbc two conceptions of truth are co1npatibie 18 .
And the answer, for my part, is clearly in the affirmative. Truth as being and
being as true are two differents meanings of 'being'. The first of these-truth as
being-corresponds to a particular niodus significancli of ens, whose reference is
co-extensive with being, while its sense adds something to it that obviously can·
not be real, but which signals the rational relationship that each reality has with
the intellect that can know it as intelligible, i.e. as true in itself. We are dealing
hence with a term among those that would later be called transcendentia, tran·
scendental properties of being. And as, according to Aquinas, a thing is intelligi·
ble in so far as it is in act, this meaning of being should be classified into the
fourth group of the senses of being, that is, being as actuality and being as
potentia litv.
The second of these two meanings of 'being', that is to say, being as true,
does not have a transcendental character as it does not refer to every type of
thing but rather only to a very particular type, which is no longer to be found in
exterior natures but only in the mind: true propositions. We are not longer before
the truth of being, but rather the being of truth. As we already know, we are deal·
ing with the second of the senses of being, i.e. being as trite or esse ut veru.1n.
The relationship between these two meanings of being is found in that of the
grounding being present in the grounded, given that the truth that is in the
mind-so called logical truth-is grounded in the internal transparency of being
in as much as it is actualized, that is to say, in transcendental truth 19 .
Although only transcendental truth-and not logical truth-forms part of
metaphysics' object, it would be a grave error to ignore logical truth, what
Aristotle called 'being as true'. For among other things, we can easily fall into a
18 .T.A. AERTSEN,
A1ledieva/ Philosophy and the Transcendentals. The Case o_,f Thotnas
Aquinas, E.J. Brill, Leiden 1996, pp. 251-252.
19 «Veritas rundatur in cssc rei, rnagis quan1 in quidditate, sicut et nomen entis ab esse imponitun> (/11 I Se11te11tiaru111, d. 19, q. 5, a. I).
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confusion about proper being and being as true, especially when dealing with
e.xistence which, as we shall see, can mean either actus essendi, or esse ut veruni,
in propositions of an existential· nature. In fact, such confusion has occurred at
crucial junctures in history, in issues of the greatest ontological, even theological,
relevance.
This is not of course the case of St Thomas. Because Aquinas makes constant
use of this distinction, to which he usually refers when he affirms that «ens
dupliciter dicittir». And this happens especially in matters that, due to his own
conception of the world, Aristotle never got around to confronting so face-on.
Particular attention should be paid to a brief text from the Summa Theologiae,
which stands out for its clarity and punch, included in the fourth article of question three of the Prima Pars, considered rightly by many commentators to be the
key-stone of Thomist natural theology. We are considering none other than the
locus solemnis in which Aquinas shows that in God essence and being (in the
sense of existence) are identified.
In order to establish this identity, St Thomas brings to bear the most advanced
aspects of his metaphysics of being as actuality.
Being-he writes in the corpus of the article-is the actuality of every form or
nature, as goodness or humanity only signify in act in so l'ar as they are. It follows then that being itself is compared with essence, which is distinct from it, as
actuality is with potentiality. But as in God there is nothing that i,~ potential, it
rollows that the essence is not distinct fro1n being. And hence, his essence is his
bcing 20 .
Whilst in all other realities, being as existence is really distinguished from the
essence, this distinction cannot be applied to God, in whom essence and existence are identified.
But in the second objection of the same article the following difficulty arises:
as Aquinas himself has set forth in the brief Introduction to this third question,
we can know of God's existence (an sit), but we cannot know what he is (quid
sit). Hence the existence of God is not the same thing as his essence.
In reply to this objection, Saint Thomas calls into play the very distinction
between the existence which is placed in the level of being as true and the existence in proper and real sense:
f
Being is said in two ways (esse dupliciter dicitur): in one case it means the actua\ity of being (actus essendi); in the other it 1neans the composition of a proposi~
1
lion, which the soul gels lo when il joins the predicate to the subject (alio modo
sign(fi'cat con1positionen1 proposition is, qtta1n ani111a ndinvenit coniugans praedicatu111 subiecto). According to the first meaning of being, we cannot know the
10
su111111a
Theo/ogiae, I, q. 3, a. 4c.
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heing or God, nor can we know his essence. But we can know it in the second
111eaning. Because we know that this proposition, which we fonn when we say
'God exists', is true (schnus eniln quad haec propositio qucun.forn1a11uts de Deo,
curn dichnus 'Deus est', vera est). And this we know by his effects 21 .
The text surprises, because it places the existence of God, arrived at from the
five ways, in a logical-semantic level, according to the sense of being as true
(esse ut verum). As Inciarte has pointed out 22 , to demonstrate the existence of
God only answers the question as to whether God exists (an Deus est). To reply
in the affirmative to this question only means that to something (existent) corresponds the predicate 'God'. We do not conclude, thus, that God is something, but
rather that something is God; of which we do not even know exactly what to
exist means for him. To demonstrate the existence of God does not amount to
more, then, than to show that the proposition 'God exists' is true (Deum esse,
verum est). As occurs in symbolic logic when one applies the existential quantifier to a propositional function, what is directly involved here is a given proposition, not a determinate real being. With the proposition 'God exists' it so happens
that this is true. And the existence affirmed in the proposition is signified by a
predicate of the second level, a predicate of concepts, according to the terminology of Gottlob Frege. But we do not refer directly here to the real being of God, to
his proper existence (esse proprium), something inalienable to him that constitutes his specific life, according to the sense of being that we use in a typically
Aristotelian proposition like «vivere viventibus est esse». And it is in this last
sense of being-and only in this last sense-that the Thomist thesis maintains
that God's existence is really identical with his essence. In this way, the difficulty
posed in the second objection is clearly resolved: there is no identity between the
essence of God and the fact of his existence; and so the Thomist thesis does not
infringe upon the situation of one who is honio victtor, who knows that God
exists, but who does not know how God himself really is.
3. Being as true, intentional being and logical being
Although this interpretation comes directly from the Thomistic text itself, it
could seem to disappoint or at least raise a few eyebrows. For it would seem to
show that the result of the demonstration does not lead us to the real existence of
21 «Esse dupliciter dicitur: uno modo significat actu1n essendi; alio modo significat co1npositione111 propositionis, qua1n anima adinvenit coniugans praedicaturn subiccto. Primo igitur
1nodo accipicndo esse, non possunu1s scirc esse Dci, sicut nee eius esscntiam: sed solun1
sccundo 111odo. Scimus cni1n quad haec propositio quatn formamus de Dea, cun1 dici1nus
'Deus est' vera est. Et hoe scin1us ex cius effectihus» (Su111111a Theologiae, I, q. 3, a. 4, ad
2).
22 Cfr. F.
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El reto de/ positivis1no /Ogico, Rialp, Madrid 1974, pp. 134-135 .
Alejandro Llano
Goel but to a somewhat strange propositional existence instead, which is not
what we were looking for; nor, of course, is it what the great run of people-and
even some analytical philosophers of recent times, contrary to the Fregean conception2'-understand by the verb 'to exist'.
But such surprise is not justified. To see why, let us stop for a few moments to
better consider the nature of this sense of being that Aristotle called on hos
olethes and Saint Thomas ens ut verum. In the first place, we need to realize that
this veritotive being does not identify with intentional being, i.e. with the·kind of
being that objects have in our mind upon being known.
Returning to some previous observations, one could say that the difference
between coincidental being and being as true lies in the fact that the first one,
starting fron1 real things that happen to occur, establishes as a predicate this coincidence ad instar entis; while the second one consists in the intellectual composition that confor1ns to the being of things. In being per accidens one goes from
things to the mind; in being as true one heads towards things from the mind.
The reference of adeguation, a constitutive dimension of being as true, does
not establish itself either in reality or in every intentional act, for as Aristotle
says. «[ ... ] 'falsity' and 'truth' are not in things-the good, for example, being
true and the bad false-but in thought; and with regard to simple concepts and
essences there is no truth or falsity even in thought» 24 . This allows us to already
see that veritative being does not si1nply coincide with intentional being; because
there are entities that possess esse intentionole, but to them we cannot attribute
esse veritativum, as in the case of concepts captured by simple apprehension, that
is to say, in the first intellectual operation.
Both being as true and i11te11tia11al behzg correspond to intellectual operations
that radically surpass all that is corporeal or anirnal 25 . But intentional being is
proper to the cognitive species and is part of the selfsame life of the living being
for whom their intellection is their life. With being as true, however, its exclusive seat is in judgements, yet not only in so far as these are operations of an
intelligent life form, but also and above all in so far as in them there is an adequation with natural reality, that is to say, truth. Thomas Aquinas, as is well
known, developed this doctrine well beyond the point where Aristotle had left it,
especially on the aspects concerning the peculiar reflection which, together with
adequation, is the very essence of human truth.
Nor can a precipitated identification be established between veritative being
and what is called logical being, that is to say, the existence possessed by secundoe intentiones, according to the scholastic ter1ninology. Given that second
intentions possess only a being ofrec1son, they constitute one of the classic types
~ 3 crr. s.
KNUUTTILA -
J. I-IINTIKKA (eds.), The Logic <~f Being, Reidel, Dordrecht 1986.
-4Me1aph. VI. 4, 1027b 25-28.
25 Cfr. F. TNCIARTE, Ser veritativo y ser existenciaf, «Anuario filos6fico», XIII-2 (1980), pp.
22-23.
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of entia rationis, which are no more than objectivizations in the immanence of
logos, "pure objects", following the denomination of Antonio Millan-Puelles in
his fundamental book The Theory of the Pure Object26 . By contrast, beiug as
tme is not limited to its mental presence, rather, it refers to reality, given that it is
in the truth of the proposition in which it appears, in its adequation with the
things it deals with. For, as Aristotle indicates,
the ten11s 'being' and 'not-being' are used not only with reference to the types of
predication, and to potentiality and actuality, or non-potentiality and non-actuality, or these types, but also to denote truth and falsity. This depends, in the case of
the objects, upon their being united or divided; so that he who thinks that what is
divided is divided, or that what is united is united, is right; while he whose
thought is contrary to the real condition of the objects is in error. Then when do
what we call truth or falsity exist or not exist" [ ... ).It is not because we are right
in thinking that you are white that you arc white; it is because you are white that
we are right in saying so 27.
Returning to the Thomistic text about the existence of God, after this somewhat more technical digression, we can now see that upon saying that the proposition 'God exists' is true, we are not maintaining that God should have a merely
intentional being, limited to the reality of thought. Hence, contrary to what
Aertsens seems to suggest, it is not an "intramental mode of being". In the case
of the five Thomistic ways, the result of the demonstration-even with this
apparently restrictive interpretation-is that there really is something that we call
'God', that God really exists, and not only in our way of thinking or speaking.
Kr eius e[fectibus, from his effects, and by different paths, we come to know that
the statement 'God exists' is true, which is exactly the same as knowing that God
exists. For, as Aquinas says in his Commentary on Book V of the Metaphysics,
«cu111 eni1n dicin1us aliquid esse, significamus propositione1n esse veram» 28 .
From the existential viewpoint, thus, our interpretation does not restrict in any
way the a posteriori demonstration of the existence of God. What the distinction
between esse ut veruni and actus essenlli highlights is that what we have arrived
at in the demonstration is not the proper being of God, but only the pronouncement of the existence of that reality which people of all religions and cultures
call 'God'. The word 'God', despite the role as subject that it plays in the text
fron1 the Sununa, is not a proper noun from a logical point of view, but rather a
predicate, i.e. a nature in the classic sense or a concept (Begrifj) in a Fregean
sense; a concept of which it is said that there is an individual that falls under it.
26 A. M!LLAN-PUELLES,
The Theory of the Pure O,b)ect, Univcrsittitsverlag C. Winter,
I-Icidclberg 1996.
27 Metoph. IX, 10, 1051" 34- 1051b 9.
28 tn v J\!Jetaphysicon11n, lect. 9, n. 895; err. 11. 896.
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And hence, to say that "there are many gods" is false, but not absurd. This is
Aquinas's own view.
Taken itY this way, existence is, according to the famous declaration of
Immanuel Kant, «not a real predicate, not the concept of something that can be
added to the concept of a thing» 29 . But this thesis was not a discovery of Frege,
nor was it of Kant. As we are now seeing, one finds it in Aquinas and one could
even rake it out of Aristotle, when in Book IV of the Metaphysics he says that
"existent n1an" and "one man" and "man" are the san1e thing 30 . This means that
neither 'to exist' not 'to be one' add to the definition of man any real or essential
detern1inations. And this means that neither existence nor unity are real, essential
predicates. Let it be said in passing that A11hur Schopenhauer had already taken
note of this when he said that in this text Aristotle has anticipated the Kantian
criticism of the ontological proof of God's existence. This fact was remembered
by Elisabeth Anscombe and Peter Geach, Professor Geach connecting it directly
with Thomas Aquinas31.
4. Existence as truth and as act of being
The advantage enjoyed by Aristotle, and even more by Aquinas, over the
Kantian approach which predominates in conten1porary linguistic analysis, is
that. in addition to this sense of existence, which is signified in the expression
"there is"-the es-giht-Existenz of Frege-, they also recognise another sense of
being as existence, which is the very act of being proper to each thing. This is
crucial to the fate of metaphysics, having been made problematic by the Kantian
and logical-positivist approaches.
We can now make reference to something that was already implicit in all that
has been said so far: that the distinction between veritative existence and being as
actuality is not to be confused with the real distinction between esse and essentia,
that is to say, with the genuine Thomistic distinctio realis, whose speculative relevance is even greater. It is quite significant, and even curious, that Aquinas should
use both distinctions, without confusing them, in the same article of the Summa
Theologiae that we are looking at. The real distinction between actus essendi and
pote11tia essendi is the conceptual key to the argument put forward in the corpus
of this forth article of the first question. The distinction between esse ut verum
and actus essendi is the tool with which Aquinas resolves the second objection
made therein. But he even applies this second distinction to God, right after having demonstrated that in him the first distinction does not apply.
19
I.
KANT,
Kritik der reh1e11 Vernunft, A 598, B 627.
1003b 26-27.
"'err. Metaph. IV, 2,
1
F. lNCl/\RTE, La hnportancia de fa uni6n. predicado-si(jeto en la doctrina trinitaria de
7bnuls de Aquino, «Scripta thcologica», XII-3 ( 1980), p. 875.
J Cfr.
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In the thought of St Thomas Aquinas, the distinction between existence as
propositional predicate and as act of being, is succinctly put in two cases, the
one being metaphysically the antithesis of the other, but which coincide in their
logical expression: the affinnation of God's existence-as we have just seen-
and the affirmation of the existence of privations, as it appears in a highly revealing text fron1 the Conunentary to the Sentences, whose relevance has been
stressed by Professor Christopher Martin:
Being is said in 1nany ways. For in one way we speak of being as divided into the
ten genera. And in thi.s sense, being ineans so1nething that exists in nature: be it a
substance, like 1nan, or be it an accident like colour. Ariother sense of being is that
which points to the truth of a proposition: because when one says that an affinnation is true, it 111eans that what is signified to be so, exists; and when dealing with
a negation, it nieans that what is signified not to be so, docs not exist. And this
sense of being signifies the co1nposition that the intellect which composes and
divides arrives at. Now all that is called being in the first sense is also being in
agreen1ent with the second way. Because all that has natural being in things can be
signified as existing by 1neans of an affinnative proposilion; as when one says that
'colour exists' or that 'man exists'. However, not all that is being in accordance
with the second way is being according to the first way. Because with regard to
privation, as in the case of blindness, one ronns a proposition in the alTirn1ative,
when one says 'blindness exists'. But blindness is not something that pertains to
the nature or things, but is rather a re1noval fro1n being. And in this way one says
that privations arc beings in accordance with the second way but not according to
the first way. Because being is predicated in a different 111anner in each of the two
ways. According to the first way it is a substantial predicate and is concerned with
the question as to what a thing is (ad lJUaestione1n qu;d est). But according to the
second way it is an accidental predicate, as the Co1n1nentator says, and pertains to
the question as to whether a thing exists (ad quaestionen1 an est) 32 .
This coincidence-paradoxical but rigorous-of the logical form according
to which we express the existence of God just as much as the existence of privations is grounded in both cases being, so to speak, limit cases of the graduated
possession of being. Neither the 'is'-in the sense of 'exists'-with which we
affirm the existence of a privation, nor 'is' with which we affirm the existence of
God, directly express an esse proprium: because the privation does not have
proper being and the being proper to God-with which himself is identified-is
unknown to us. Such coincidence underlines-as suggested in the text just quot-
ed-the incomplete correspondence of being de dicta with being de re, i.e. the
greater amplitude of the first with respect to the second.
31 111 If Se11re11tiar11111, d. 34, q. I, a. !. Cfr. In VI f\!Jetaphysicoru111, !eel. 4, n. 1223; F.
BRENTANO, O.C.,
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p. 34.
Alejandro Llano
Aquinas refers to both cases~with explicit mention of Aristotle, and in the
san1e logical context-in a text, frotn the Quaestio dis1Jutata De Potentia. Here
he passes immediately from one case to the other:
'Ens' and 'esse' arc said in two ways, as Aristotle 1nade clear in Book V of the
Metaphysics. For at times il can incan the essence o.f the thing, or the act o.f
beh1R; whereas at others it refers to the truth o,fthe propositions, concerning even
lhings that do not have being; as when we say that 'blindness exists' because it is
true that a man is blind. When St John Damascene says that the being of God is
n1anil'est to us, he takes the meaning of being in its second sense and not in the
rirst one. For in the first sense, the being of God is identified with his substance:
and as his substance is unknown to us, so too his being is also unknown to us. In
the second sense, on the other hand, we know that God exists, because we can
conceive this proposition in our intelligence, starting fro111 his effects 33 .
The issue of the type of being that corresponds to privations takes on special
metaphysical ant theological relevance when we look at the problem of evil. As
Aquinas says in the Prima pars of the Summa Theologiae, question 48, article 2,
it is evident that there is evil in things. But one could object that evil is a privation, a mere non-being, and that it is impossible, hence, for evil to exist in things
because non-being does not exist3 4 . In order to respond to this difficulty, Thomas
draws once more from the already alluded to distinction. 'To be', he reminds us,
is taken in two senses. With the first, it means the entity of the thing (entitas rei);
and this is the sense according to which the entity is declined analogically into
ten predicaments or categories. The second sense (itself uni vocal in meaning), in
which being is taken, means the truth of a proposition (veritas propositionis),
which is in the composition and has as its distinctive sign the verb 'is'. This is
the sense of being to which corresponds the question an est, i.e., to whether
something exist or not. In this second mode we can say with truth that 'there is
evil', that 'evil exists'. And Aquinas could conclude that, by not attending to the
double meaning of the verb 'to be', there were some who, when saying that
things are evil, or that evil is in things, believed that evil was actually some
thing 35 .
5. The role of the many senses of being in metaphysics and theology
As we are presently seeing, the distinction between the different senses of
being always has the effect-in one way or another-of overcoming reification
33 f)e Pote11tia, q. 7, a. 2, ad 1. Cfr. Contra Gentiles, III, c. 9, a. 6.
34 S11T11111a Theo/ogiae, I, q. 48, a. 2, obiect. 2.
:. 5511111111(1 Theofogiae, J, q. 48, a. 2, ad 2.
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in metaphysical problems. This is an unmistakable sign that Aquinas did not
limit himself to taking from Aristotle a handy conceptual tool for solving linguistic puz:les, but rather that this technical recourse was at the service of an intellectual dynamic that moved his metaphysics progressively from contents to acts:
fron1 ens ]Jer acciclens to ens per se; fron1 esse ut veru111 to esse propriiun; fro1n
acciclents to substance; and, in short, from .forn1 to act, until reaching 11ure
Actuality, God himself, in whom all content is transcended, reaching toward the
supreme perfection of a praxis teleia that refers to itself, because it is a noesis
noeseos noesis. God is the substantive Act, which Aquinas ca11ed Jpsuni esse
subsistens. In this way the negative aspect which the Thomistic essential theology appeared to adopt at the start, does not in any way present the agnostic bias
acquired in Maimonides. Rather it is ordained towards a knowledge of the divine
essence which is purified from all adhesion to mundane realities that are proper
to the different types of anthropomorphism.
As Mercedes Rubio has pointed out, «Thomas Aquinas appreciated and
shared Maimonides' commitment to physical reality and undertook the task of
finding a way to the knowledge of God taking the world as stmting point»36.
Strikingly, after taking the same route, the two eventually reach opposite conclusions regarding the possibility of the knowledge of God. Jn fact, according to
Aquinas, the human intellect is able to apprehend being by nature. This apprehension, which he calls ratio, would enable the crossing from the ontological
level (reality) to the gnoseological one (knowledge) and back (knowledge oft!iat
reality). The ratio consists of the intellectual content of an apprehension without
the limitations inherent to a concept. «At the linguistic level», concludes
Mercedes Rubio, «Aquinas explains the 'hinge' between reality and knowledge
with the distinction of the two senses of the word being: being as real (ontological being), and being as truth (veritative or gnoseological being)» 37 .
It is evident that this Thomistic recourse to the distinction between the different meanings of being, and especially to the distinction between being as true
and proper being, is not limited to metaphysics, within which natural theology is
included, but that it extends quite naturally to theology in its strict sense, that is
to say, to the doctrine of Christian faith.
Aquinas makes use of this distinction when dealing with theological problems of the first imp011ance. Jn the ninth of the Quaestiones Quodlibetales, for
instance, he tries to demonstrate that in Christ there is only one esse substantiate.
The fourth objection raises the following difficulty: one can attribute esse to all
that one can ask about as existing or not (an est); now then, one can ask if the
36 Cfr. W.Z. HARVEY,
Physics and Metaphysics in Hasdai Crescas, Arnsterdan1 Studies in
Je\.vish 'l'hougt, An1sterdan1 1998, p. 76; L,. DEWAN, St. Tho111as, Physics, and the Principle
r!f' /v/ef(lphysics, «The Thon1isl», 61 ( 1997), pp. 549-566.
37 J'v'I. RuBro, lvlai111011ides and Aquinas on the Knowledge (~f God, pro 1nanuscripto, Jerusale1n
2000, p. 3.
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Alejandro Llano
human nature of Christ exists (and the answer is in the affirmative, contrary to
the monophysite heresy). Hepce the human nature of Christ-as well as the
divine one-has an esse proprium in Christ, and thus there is in him a double
esse. In reply to this objection, Aquinas limits himself to invalidate it by mentioning the meaning of being employed by the objector, which is not relevant to
the context. And in making this allegation, he compares once more the case of
God with the privations: «Obiectio illa procedit de 'esse' quod in actu animae
consistit; quia on est, etiam de caecitate quaeri potest» 38 .
In the corpus of the article, Aquinas develops the doctrine we are now familiar with:
'Being' is said in two ways, in accordance with what Aristotle had indicated in
Book V of the Metaphysics. [... ]According to one of them, it is the verbal copula
thal signifies the composition of any sentence 1nµde by the n1ind. Hence, the esse
to which we refer in this first sense is not son1ething in the nature of things, but
only in the act of n1ind that co1nposes and divides; and such esse is attributed to
al I that can tOn11 a proposition, be it being or be it privation of being [or, as in the
case or the hu111an nature of Christ, to something that is not a suppositiun substantiate, but rather that by which-qua-Christ is truly n1an]. According to the
other way, 'being' is said as act of the entity in so much as it is an entity, that is to
say, as that by which one calls so1nething entity in act in the nature of things; and
in this second sense, the esse is not attributed to other than the things contained in
the ten predica111ents or categories [as with the person-which is divine-of
Christ. whose esse substantiale is the only one that Christ has] 39 .
The Thomist argument in the treatise De Verba Incarnato as much as in the
treatise De Trinitate would not be viable without the continuous use of the distinctions between the different senses of being, just as Aquinas found them in an
Aristotle who, for historical and religious reasons, was obviously quite removed
from such concerns. Certainly, as we have seen, his own metaphysics of being as
38 Quodlibet11111 IX, q. 2, a. 3, ad 4.
39 «Essc clupliciter clicitur, ut patct per Philosophu1n in V Metaph. [ ... ].Uno modo, secundu1n
quod est copula verbalis significans compositionen1 cuiuslibet enuntiationis qua1n ani1na1n
racit: unde hoe esse non est aliquid in rerum natura, sed tantuin in actu animae componentis
et dividcntis. Et sic esse atlribuitur on1ni ei de quo potest proposilio fo1mari, sive sit ens,
sive privatio entis; clici1nus enin1 caecitate1n esse. A!io n1odo dicitur actus entis in quantum
est ens, iciest quad denon1inatur aliquid ens actu in natura. Est sic esse non attribuitur nisi
rebus ipsis quae in decem generibus continentur; uncle ens a tali esse dictum per dece1n
genera diviclitur [ ... ]».The conclusion that 'fhomas wishes to draw is this: «Quia ergo in
Christo ponin1us unan1 rein subsistcntem tantu1n, ad cuius integ1itaten1 concurrit etiam
hun1nnitas, quia unum suppositu1n est utriusque naturac; idco oportet dicerc quad esse substantiate, quocl proprie attribuitur supposito, in Christo est unun1 tantu1n; habet autem unita. ten1 ex ipso supposito, et non ex naturis» (Quod/ibetutn IX, q. 2, a. 3). Cfr. G.E.M.
ANSCOMBE - P. GEACH, Three Philosophers, p. 90.
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actuality and his biblical and Christian theology move Aquinas to develop an
original argun1ent fro1n the Aristotelian linguistic and conceptual analysis, without deviating from it in any way. The study of the phi/osophia perennis-of philosophy as such-places us in an ambience of thought that is miles away from
1nu lticultural ism.
***
Abstract: L'a1>profondime11to dell'argomento aristotelico della nwlteplicita dei
111odi (/i essere ha perniesso a San 1'onunaso di sviluppare alculli tenii teologici cli
tipo 111etqflsico senza cadere in alcuni JJroble111i ricorrellti clelle. conceziolli clel1'essere inteso conie "generalissi1110" o conie 1nera f'orniolitit logica. Una revisione clei testi fonclanientali di Aristotele su questo aspetto getta luce su alcuni
problen1i pressocht ignorati clai conunentatori del Filosofo, nonche dai discepoli
di San Tonunoso, intravisti da Kant, e riproposti parz.iabnente da Frege, per poi
essere lli nuovo ripresi da alcunijilosoJ1 analitici. La class(ficazione aristotelica
dell'essere - che parte dall'essere concreto e 11011 clall'essere logico o indeter1ni11ato - 11011. f! lf/1 se111p[ice efenco, /11G la presentazione di quattro criteri jJer
(/;sth1guere le nzoda/itit clell'essere in nzodo organico e gerarchico: l'essere per
se corne op posta all' essere accillentale; la distinzione .fro I' essere veritativo (en.s
ut verun1) e /'essere propriun1; l'essere secondo le cotegorie; e iqfine l'essere
inteso co111e atto e conie potenza. Nella n1etqflsica cli Tonunaso la distinz.ione tra
l'essere veritativo e l'essere propri111n e.foncla111e11tale per parlare sia dell'esi~
stenz.a di Dio (;/ cui essere propriun1 ci e sconosciuto) sio dell'esistenza ([el niale
( che 11011 ho un essere proprium). Nella teologia tale distinzione serve per poler
par/are delle due nature di Cristo senza attribuirgli un duplice essere.
44